


Meaning In Death

by Nyxokal



Category: Tales of Symphonia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Character Death, I mean he's dead, Introspection, Mentions of Suicide, Other, POV Third Person Limited, Pacts, Time Loop, hoo boy, not very romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 01:59:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxokal/pseuds/Nyxokal
Summary: Congratulations, it is the end. It appears that you have died.Would you like to restart?





	Meaning In Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rarmaster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarmaster/gifts), [Aerora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aerora/gifts).



> This is heavily based off [rarmaster's time loop system.](https://twitter.com/rarsneezes/status/1084176839587684352) You should probably read the rules before you proceed, but the gist of it is that for anyone who wishes to go back in time, a sacrifice close to them must be chosen. You get an idea of where this is going now, then.
> 
> Also, this is a completely separate au from the one that rarmaster is writing, just fyi!

Everything is white.

Zelos blinks. There’s a numbness where he thinks his body must be, but it feels kind of floaty and lost, like his mind is still trying to reconnect with the rest of his senses and the world around him—or, this shadow of the world. Zelos blinks again, looks around. Everywhere he looks, everything is still blindingly white. Huh. He looks down at himself, at his hands. The black and pink fabrics of his gloves are a stark contrast against the white fogs of this place. And where is he? A dream? A spell? Unconscious, maybe?

Huh.

A vague sensation of nausea comes in a burst, but it goes almost as quickly as it came. He takes a deep breath and feels himself move, gloved hands searching for his own head, if only just to tangle his fingers with his hair and pull. It’d be a sensation against the numbing nothingness, at least. Inhale, exhale. Discomfort, on his stomach. Nausea. The red of his own hair against the white of the world makes him shudder.

He blinks. Breathes. Come on, Zelos, come on. Don’t think about that. Just remember. Where was he before all this, again?

Snow, comes to mind. It makes him shudder at once. He remembers the cold of Flanoir’s night as he wandered outside. There was something he wanted to do, someone he wanted to see. He squints. Lloyd? Yes, maybe. Something about Aionis, about a sword. Anxieties fresh in his stomach as a choice he didn’t want to make on his own presented itself before him—

Oh.

And just like that he remembers.

The journey, Flanoir, Kratos and Lloyd under the snow. The Tower of Salvation. He remembers Colette. Remembers betraying her trust, remembers the empty hole in his stomach when he turned around and faced the one boy who insisted he still trusted him despite having chosen this path for them barely even twelve hours earlier.

But that’s not right, something soft in him says, something bitter. Lloyd didn’t make this choice at all.

_Your fault, your fault, your fault your fault your fault—_

Rapid images bombard his brain and the ghost of his heart constricts painfully in his chest. The shaky imprint of Lloyd’s panicked face in his mind is surrounded by times when Zelos came so close to telling the truth, close to finally choosing a side in this mess of a conflict. It all shatters away when the memory of Zelos pointing his sword at him and Lloyd having no choice but to respond in kind slices it cleanly in two.

It’s all a blurry mess from there, really. Zelos wasn’t really _there_ after it all went to hell. He blinks, and he remembers fighting. He remembers pretending it was to stall them yet not really putting his all into it. Sloppy slashes, pathetic counters, half-baked spells. Anyone who cared would’ve noticed that Zelos wasn’t fighting to win. Would’ve noticed he had something else in mind when he kept his eyes on Lloyd’s swords like they were everything that mattered.

But, of course, nobody actually cared.

Of course.

Ah, haha.

Ha, ha, ha.

What the hell has he done?

Something burns in his eyes. Tears. He blinks them away, sees them exit his eyes anyway and tangle with his eyelashes, then float up in the air, aimless. An empty little snort escapes through his lips. Look at him now, regretting his choices as if he had the right to do it, to think of what he could’ve done differently. Pathetic, crying over his own suicide.

But this is what he wanted, right? This is what he chose.

It’s not like it matters anymore, either. Sooner or later his consciousness should fade. It’s all a matter of time, really.

_Make sure you destroy my Cruxis Crystal._

He blinks again against the foggy whiteness of death, sending more tears floating up, held in the air before his face. That weird feeling of nausea and discomfort on his stomach comes again. A gloved hand comes to rest on it. He remembers the sword that pierced him, remembers it stopping him in his tracks as he finally got what he wanted from the only person who could’ve given it to him.

It all slows down from there on. There was a floaty feeling as exhaustion finally claimed him, then as Lloyd started lowering him to the floor as he bled out, cradling him with a gentleness no traitor should deserve. That makes him shiver, scowling as he fruitlessly attempts to keep the tears in his eyes. No, no, he remembers thinking, saying. Don’t you dare be kind. After what you’ve done, you don’t get to be kind.

But he’d craved it all the same, anyway. In his last moments, at least that gentleness made him feel like maybe there’d been something worth it in his life, if he got to meet the one to grant him the freedom he so craved, who gave him the only few genuine feelings and moments of his life. The one who showed him the sweet, addictive sensation of placing his faith somewhere only to have it ripped beneath his feet. Only to retaliate in the only destructive way he knew how.

Something warm and gentle pops in his chest, and he laughs, broken, squeezing his eyes shut. How ridiculous, he thinks.

How ridiculous.

Love in death is a twisted thing tainted by the blood of the departing. How badly he wishes he could’ve dispelled that horrified look on Lloyd’s face as he looked down at the mess he’d made. No, no. Don’t cry. You’ve done something good. Don’t you see that you’ve helped me? Don’t you see you’ve set me free? This is a good thing. This is fair. Death is the one thing that someone like him deserves.

Why do you look so heartbroken?

_I’m so sorry._

Zelos hisses through grit teeth. Those tears he’d held in float up when he shuts his eyes and presses the heels of his hands against them. He tries to push away the memory of Lloyd looking downright _miserable_ as he held his dying traitor, the way it tore apart at his own heart as little whispers of _‘this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong’_ bombarded his senses as he died.

No, stop. Stop thinking about it, stop. Let it end already, damn it—there’s nothing to do about it anyway if he’s _dead._ Zelos made Lloyd kill him, yet he’s still conscious, somehow. He grits his teeth, begs for it to stop. Lloyd should’ve destroyed his Cruxis Crystal already. Why the hell is he still _here?_

Maybe he thought that floating aimlessly in limbo is what he deserves. Then he’s not even going to die properly or go to hell to escape what he’s done.

Oh, god—

“Do you wish to change it?”

He opens his eyes.

Somehow he’s on the ground now, red hair sprawled everywhere around him, playing the part of the blood that he’d lost in that battle. He blinks, the fog from before still white as snow, invading his senses. Zelos hates it. He shudders. He turns his head to the side, hair cascading down his face, tickling his nose and making him puff out a breath to get rid of it. Then he squints into the fog, eyes catching a figure in the distance as it slowly approaches, footsteps silent as they intrude in the realm between life and death.

Must be the person who spoke, Zelos reasons. The hand he keeps over his stomach twitches slightly, fingers tightening against the black fabric of his ripped shirt. He keeps his expression as blank as he can as the figure finally steps out of the fog, uncaring and yet curious, watching their every movement carefully, just in case—

Just in case what? In case they try something funny? In case they hurt him?

It shouldn’t matter at all. Something about that makes him smirk—Zelos Wilder? Experiencing _self-preservation? Now_ of all times?

_Ha, ha, ha._

He blinks.

The first thing that Zelos notices, upon catching a full picture of his companion in the limbo, are the arms. Four of them, wrapped by strange, red wing-like appendages sprouting from his back. Okay. He wears nothing really, though the man’s skin has a dual tonality to it, fading to purple below his hips. That’s odd. He stops a few steps away from where Zelos lies on the ground. Zelos watches him stand tall and muscular, blond hair slicked back and fully revealing his face, gentle red eyes set on Zelos and Zelos alone.

It’s when they make eye contact that Zelos feels his heart get caught in his throat. There’s something heavy in those eyes, something old and dipped in an ancient kind of magic that makes him feel unworthy and filthy to the core. Something that almost sends a shiver down Zelos’ spine, that makes him feel as though his very soul were being laid bare and weighed right before it’s sent to hell, every sin reviewed and accounted for within seconds.

What the _hell._

He speaks before Zelos can react beyond blinking in confusion and raising an eyebrow, before he can even think of cracking some stupid joke in some broken echo of his bad habits while in life. “You reject this outcome,” the figure speaks, wings twitching. “It is not what you wanted, so you wish for a new one.”

“Who the hell are you?”

Zelos almost cringes the second the words leave his mouth. It’s odd, for him, to hear his own voice reverberating through an empty space of fog and mist, tone raised as if to appear self-important even if he’s already dead in the first place. Speak over everyone so that no one can push you down, assert yourself as equal or higher even in situations of disadvantage. Stupid, useless habits they are, but a habit is a habit, and it brings some semblance of control and comfort to a dead man speaking with the dead during his last moments of conscious, so Zelos stops caring and lets them be.

His insolence goes unanswered. His companion tilts his head, red gaze still trained on Zelos as he begins to circle the dead Chosen. Zelos tenses, keeps eye contact. Tries to hide how heavy the weight of that gaze rests on his chest. Tries not to focus too much on his next words:

“I can see your heart,” the man says, slow, words echoing into the void.

A laugh, small and wheezing through a smirk. “Oh, boy.”

“The pain inside of it is devastating and of your own doing, equaled only by one other’s. Yet you both refuse to accept the consequences of your actions.” The man stops, finally, standing to Zelos’ right, stepping closer, looking down at him through squinted eyes. “You hold regrets. Many of them, in fact—enough to wish to have done it all differently.”

“Sure are chatty for someone who hasn’t introduced himself,” Zelos snaps through a laugh. He removes his hand from over his stomach and tries to stand—

What?

Zelos blinks, tries again. His body won’t move. That’s… not reassuring. Something’s wrong here. He tries again, still nothing, only a desperate twitching to his fingers and a slight raise of his left arm. But other than that, he just can’t move at all; it’s like exhaustion has shot up his veins and filled them with lead, the heaviness that sets in pushing him further into what it’s now decided is the ground.

That complicates things, alright.

“I am Origin,” the man says immediately, right over the sudden silence. Zelos tries to get up again. It’s like a dance of ignoring each other by now, one that Origin doesn’t seem to particularly like when he steps closer—close enough to stand right over Zelos and stop him in his tracks, frozen, violet eyes wide and set on Origin’s again. “If you truly wish to change fate’s design,” Origin announces, “then I have the means for you to do so. A second chance.”

Second chance.

One more laugh escapes Zelos’ lungs, this one a little more deranged than the last, phantom adrenaline flowing where there once was a heartbeat pushing blood and dragging down a dangerous, floating feeling in his chest. In the absence of movement, Zelos chooses to be loud. He squints his eyes at Origin, watches him blink as if confused, expression otherwise serene. At once Zelos finds it irritating.

He growls and grits his teeth, hard enough as if to cage the slowed, injured heart that threatens to come out of his throat. A second chance, Origin’s words echo in his mind, pushing against his eyes. He grins, mad. _Enraged._ Second chance, second chance, second chance—

Is this a joke?

Second chances come only to those who need or deserve them, those wronged by life and death who left duties to take care of unresolved. Zelos got here by his own means. It was a suicide. He forced an innocent to end his life as if that would earn him some fucking sort of redemption as his own bad choices came crumbling down on him, threatening to crush him. All because he’d wanted to leave the world in his own terms, or some other stupid thing like that.

There is no fixing any of his mistakes. A soul tainted by selfish desires is not one that deserves a second chance. What a pathetic disgrace of Chosen he makes.

So with no hesitation behind the words he hisses his answer through ground teeth: “Hard pass.”

Pause, for a second. Origin blinks at Zelos as he starts to shake, as he burns from the inside out, then tilts his head once more.

“You reject it?”

Zelos laughs again, manic and exhausted and wondering just how long it takes for a soul to fucking disappear. “The fuck did I just say? Hard. Pass.” He scoffs, grin turning cruel. “I mean, super kind of you to take pity on the dead, Origin, but I think you must’ve missed the part where _I killed myself.”_

“You made the one you love strike you down.”

Origin speaks that so casually and strongly, like it’s merely a fact and not an open wound he’s dragged every single one of his hands into. Zelos shuts his eyes against the waves of it. A gloved hand comes to rest on his face, hiding laughter, hiding a grimace, hiding a hiss of boiling emotion. Breathe in, breathe out. Carve a mask out of the broken materials left behind. Find your anger, familiar and easier to externalize than anything else, and cling to that.

He finds it sure enough, lets it guide the way forward. It makes his hands twitch again. He keeps his eyes closed. “Sure did, buddy. Any reason why you’re bringing _that_ up?” Zelos asks, voice lowered like it’s a threat.

“The moment that he struck you down, even in death, the two of you became connected.”

Violet eyes fly back open just as acidic anger slips away like smoke between gloved fingers.

He blinks once, twice. Stumbles backwards where he stands— _when did he stand up—_ and sets a hand on his chest, over his quickened heartbeat, the dead organ kickstarted through a cold shock dripping down his spine that slowly starts gearing into full-blown panic. Blood rushing in his ears, Zelos almost misses the sound of Origin’s words resounding through the area, over the clicking of machinery in the distance.

Wide, wild eyes flicker all around him, take in the new scenery that surrounds him. The image of Sylvarant and Tethe’alla off in the distance, bound tightly together through mana, Derris-Kharlan not too far from the cluster. The gigantic gears spinning underneath him, the intense and nearly deafening sound that reverbs within the walls of his newly-awakened heart.

Zelos blinks, breath leaving his lungs in a startled gasp as he looks down. He stands in the middle of a large clock suspended in the air, as it tick-tick-ticks away in the silence, the hands spinning wildly out of control as an afterimage of the night sky dances over their metal, stars and galaxies and nebulae flowing quickly like water.

Sweat trickles down his brow. Oppressive noise and charged air fill Zelos’ senses, cause a bubbling sensation of marvel and anxiety and _hope_ to claw its way up his throat. He swallows it down, takes a deep, shuddering breath. Tears his gaze off the clock, looks up and meets Origin’s eyes once more. The man is floating, now. Arms crossed and expression disinterested, red appendages fluttering with a breeze that doesn’t seem to come from anywhere.

A Summon Spirit. The man has got to be either a Summon Spirit or a god.

Zelos’ mouth goes dry at the sight. “Is this normally what it’s like to die?” he breathes out a weak, startled laugh. “‘Cause I get the feeling it’s really not.”

“I come to you now after forming a pact with Lloyd Irving. He has lost much to this journey, enough so that the grief left behind threatens to break him apart,” Origin says, once again simply ignoring Zelos as waves of shock and anxious energy fill his veins at the mere mention of Lloyd’s name. Zelos’ heart throbs. And Origin just floats there, the bastard. Zelos glares at him in vain. Summon Spirit, then. “But he is willing to try again,” Origin continues. “Willing to repeat this as many times as it takes until he gets it right. Until those he wishes to save are saved.”

Origin’s words are like knife after knife. Stab, stab, stab, they go, right into Zelos’ guilty, broken heart. Zelos scoffs. Now finally able to move again, he crosses his arms over his chest, lets his hair fall over his face and obscure his scowl. Tries not to think about Lloyd breaking in grief, tries not to think about what that mental image does to his heart. Stab, comes the guilt. Watch it bleed out of him, watch it bleed out of him.

“Yeah, fucking fantastic for him, then. Great,” he deadpans. He raises his voice until he can hear the vibrations of his own words in his throat. The sound of the turning gears below him is suffocating. “What the hell does this have to do with my ‘second chance’, though?”

“Because you are part of those that he wishes to save.”

 _Stab,_ twist the knife. Cold, frozen hope comes out, engulfed and consumed by the regret that erupts from his gasp.

“You’ve got to be fucking joking,” Zelos breathes.

Origin tilts his head. “I speak only of what I saw in his heart.”

 _Stab, stab, stab._ “No, you’re wrong. _He’s_ wrong,” the Chosen spits the words out like they’re acid tearing at his throat, like a diseased system rejecting treatment. Origin remains impassive. “No,” he steps back, stumbles, nearly loses his balance on the clock’s gears. Zelos’ hands are numb. “Fuck—no! People like me don’t get to come back from shit like this!”

“Why is that?”

“Because he has no fucking reason to want me back, damn it! I _betrayed him!_ Hurt him! Did everything wrong!” Zelos chokes, shudders for breath. His heart hammers against his ribcage at his outburst, visions of Lloyd’s _heartbroken_ face as he died coming back, shaking with each gasp. Stab, again comes the knife. He lowers his head to rest between his hands. “You—you can’t just _change that!”_

“You are only one of many factors. Regardless of your actions, the boy, Lloyd, still thinks otherwise,” Origin says. He floats closer to the heaving Chosen, quiet among the cacophonous tick-tick-tick- _tock_ of the clock over Zelos’ harsh, shallow breaths. “He is determined in his way,” the Spirit continues. “And it is not the first time I grant this power to a mortal. His resolve is strong. His vision is ultimately one of selflessness. That is the only reason why I allow for this to happen.”

Tick-tick-tick-tock, stab, stab, tick-tock-tick. Something vulnerable burns in his eyes. He’s so sick of crying, so Zelos whines low as he covers his face with his hands, then drags open, gloved palms over his eyes, inhaling and exhaling in shuddering breaths. And now he’s shaking. Great. Knife after knife after knife comes regret.

Silence has fallen, but _traitor, traitor,_ the clock’s gears echo underneath Origin’s words as they travel through space and seep into a hurting, bleeding heart. Tick-tick-tick-tock, tick-tick-tick-tock.

He swallows down the lump in his throat and laughs, just a quiet and broken release of breath through sneering lips. That knife lodged in his heart now twists deep into his very soul. Because it’s so typical of Lloyd, to want everything to go right and for as many people as possible to be saved. So typical of Lloyd to want to find a way to forgive even the unforgivable, and that’s the _problem—_ because if he’s shoved Zelos into that list, then that means—it means—

It means that heartbreak was real. It means that regret, that gentleness, that _kindness_ was real, and it means that on a single, unhinged impulse of jealousy and despair Zelos took everything beautiful that Lloyd offered and threw it back at his feet, shattered it, destroyed it beyond recognition. And yet Lloyd wants to try again? Wants to _save him?_ What the hell could be worth saving in _that?_

What has he _done?_

Breathe in, out. Grip the knife tightly and slowly pull it out, shoulders slumping as aching affection and hot self-hatred drip out of the wound. The mask Zelos chooses to put on for Origin after his outburst is tainted with it, but it’s the only one he has now, so he sets it in place and grins up at the man like nothing’s happened.

There’s a question on his tongue. He also has an image to sell, so he scoffs. “No matter what I say, or what I do,” Zelos finds his voice, shapes the words around a shell of sardonic resignation that he’d once used to manipulate his way out of anything he hated in life, “you’re not going to let me change your mind, or Lloyd’s. The wheel is already turning.” Zelos huffs, crosses his arms. Counts to five and back, taps numb fingers against his crossed forearms, swallows down regret. Asks, “So why the hell are you telling me all of this?”

As he speaks, he sees Origin float closer until he’s right over one of the metal numerals on the clock—over the number twelve, Zelos notes. Tick-tick-tick-tock. He momentarily wonders if it was on purpose. Origin descends and stands on the number, feet dipping into the mirage of space traveling over its surface like he’s standing in water.

Something behind him, on Derris-Kharlan, begins to glow.

“Resetting a timeline is not something you can do without cost,” the Spirit explains. He apparently has no problem ignoring the light show. One of the two arms he doesn’t have crossed gestures towards Zelos, a simple, nonchalant flap of is wrist. “It is a team effort. For every looper that wishes to return to the start, a sacrifice must be made. That sacrifice must be willing.”

“Oh.”

Zelos’ blood aches. It’s like poison in his veins. The light from Derris-Kharlan begins to fade, behind Origin. “In this case, Lloyd would be the looper. That would make you his sacrifice,” Origin adds quickly just as the images of Sylvarant and Tethe’alla begin to approach each other, Derris-Kharlan caught in the waves of their gravitational pull. The Spirit tilts his head again, blinks down at Zelos. He’s so damn tall. “Are you willing?”

_That would make you his sacrifice._

Pause, stop. Eyes locked on the cosmic dance behind Origin, Zelos tries to remember how to breathe. Refuses to let him know how much the weight of those words burns by keeping his face blank. Cradles the implications close like the last candle in the dark.

Tick-tick-tick-tock. Tick-tick-tick-tock.

He draws a deep breath, blinks.

And then something new slithers up Zelos’ spine.

It’s an ugly, slimy thing full of negativity that chokes him like water flooding the lungs of a drowning man. All at once the burdens in life he’d thought he’d shed with his suicide shackle themselves to his neck, pulling, pulling, pulling down and shaking him whole as he glares up at Origin’s fucking impassive red stare.

The knife is turned outwards this time, held in trembling, furious hands, sharpened by agony and denial. Sharpened by hate, stained by regret.

“What makes you think I’m just gonna accept those terms?” Zelos spits out.

Blood boils when Origin simply blinks. “It’s your choice. And if you must sacrifice something, then at least you could choose what you sacrifice it for,” he points out. Zelos _scowls,_ teeth bared in the most real, feral sneer he’s ever allowed himself to wear. He goes ignored. Origin’s two free arms gesture around them into space. “Besides, you have already paid the price,” he says, “and I can see how much you care about him as well. It's easier to ask you than to ask someone else to pay it for him.”

“So you just want me to be the sacrifice because I’m the one person in his group who’s already dead.”

“Not quite. It simply works best if the payment is someone dear to the looper.”

_Tick, tick, tick, tock._

Shaking laughter comes easiest when it’s dismissive and meant to protect a breaking core. “Now you’re just spewing nonsense.”

Origin doesn’t respond. The clock below them continues to tick away, but slower than its fervent and lost whirling from before. Behind the Spirit Zelos can see Sylvarant and Tethe’alla come closer and closer together until they crash, light sprouting forth from the contact point. He grunts, shields his eyes with a raised hand, squints through his fingers to try and take it all in. What the hell’s going on? It’s so damn bright.

It stays glowing for a long time, enough for Zelos’ eyes to burn. He blinks tears away. When the light finally begins to fade there’s no Sylvarant or Tethe’alla anymore; only a single planet remains, blue and green and perfect as if that were the way it was always meant to be. Derris-Kharlan sits closer to it than ever before for a few minutes, then starts to separate and float away.

Zelos gapes, lowers his hand. _Aselia,_ comes a whisper in his heart, something ancient delivering an answer to a question never asked.

Looks like Lloyd made it.

Even Origin has turned his head to look at the results of Lloyd’s journey. The knife is thus lowered, nearly slipping out of cold, numb hands. Tick, tick, tick, tock. Something lodges itself in Zelos’ throat at the sight of the planet, some warm and bubbly emotion that has no place in a dead man’s lungs, one that he fruitlessly tries to swallow down only to fail. It still spreads over him like ice on glass on a winter morning. Zelos refuses to identify it—lingering on such things has only proven to be dangerous.

Instead he chooses to smile bitterly, a hand flying up to his forehead and pushing back at the headband until it comes off, red bangs falling over a pair of violet eyes still stuck on the newly united planet. Two worlds brought back together by the hand of a single, stubborn boy clad in red. A wish come true. A goal met.

Really, to observe this in real time feels a lot like proof of his fire and push to get shit done and come out victorious, Zelos thinks.

And yet here’s Origin, telling Zelos that Lloyd is _unsatisfied_ enough to repeat the journey from square one. _For his sake._

The smile falls apart. That unknown emotion comes back again, picking the knife from his hand and coiling around his lungs, leaving him aching and breathless as it carves out regrets on the surface of his heart. It’s so stupid. Stop it, Lloyd. It’s not worth it.

He’s not worth it.

But then something Origin said comes to mind again, resounding like a numbing gong. The fact that the Spirit wouldn’t be here if there hadn’t been a pact already formed. So Lloyd… really has made up his mind, hasn’t he? All the pieces are already aligned, ready to play their part.

Except for one single thing.

_Tick,_

All that Lloyd needs to get through what he wants is for a payment to be made.

_tick,_

It’s one life in exchange of so many. One worthless existence given meaning in death. Because nobody really said that Zelos _had_ to survive the reset.

_tick,_

That’s all Origin asks of him. That’s all Lloyd needs from him. And all Zelos needs to do for him to succeed is just _give in._

After all, if he must sacrifice something, then at least he could choose what he sacrifices it for, right?

_tock._

Zelos closes his eyes. The knife finishes carving at his heart, leaving it scarred yet still beating in his chest.

Slowly, he smiles. Slowly, he opens his eyes.

“What do I have to do, to be his sacrifice?” he speaks, voice loud and booming in his ears as they’re filled with the sound of his rushing blood.

Either the clock below them is definitely slowing down or the adrenaline in his veins is making everything look slower. Zelos wraps his arms around himself, huffs. Looks up to meet the Summon Spirit’s gaze again, finds that something in those red eyes has changed, something that looks softer and slightly less distant than before. Something ancient. It still feels like his soul is being laid bare and examined from the inside out. It’s still such an uncomfortable feeling.

Over the gears that spin wildly underneath him, Origin leaves his spot over the number twelve and steps forward. Tick, tick, tick, tock, goes the clock. The stars and galaxies on the gears wobble at his feet like water disrupted, opening the way. “In order to ensure the timeline’s deviation from its predestined path, you will both retain your memories of the reset. However, if he wishes to reset again,” Origin’s eyes darken, “then... you will have to give up your life.”

Of course. Figures. “So he can’t reset until I die.”

“Correct.”

“Ah.”

_Tick._

His fingers twitch, tightly gripping at the pink fabric of his coat. He nods, purses his lips into a fine line, frowns and lowers his gaze. Hums. An endless cycle of death isn’t that much different from the life of a Chosen, but at least _this_ serves a better purpose. At least he’s already seen proof that _this_ sacrifice will lead to an actual ending where the one he’s tied to will make a difference—

Wait.

Something pops into his mind. A memory, followed by a realization, then a request—or rather, a demand. “He can’t know I’m doing this. At all,” Zelos commands as he looks at Origin again, eyes squinted and arms dropping to his sides. Origin stops a few steps away from him, frowns and tilts his head again. Zelos hates that he’s been here long enough to recognize the gesture as a prompt to explain himself.

For now he rolls his eyes, gestures vaguely. “If Lloyd finds out someone’s dying for his cause every time, he’s going to want to stop _immediately_ and it’ll all be for naught. He’s a softie that doesn’t get the meaning of a necessary sacrifice like that.” He sighs, rests a hand on his hip. Squashes down the quivering of a smile that threatens to break his expression. “So, he can’t know about me at all.”

_Tick._

"But that would keep him looping,” Origin points out. Something cautious reverbs in his voice, in the way he uncrosses his arms and his shoulders tense. That hardened, distant something is in his eyes again the moment Zelos opens his mouth, shuts him up immediately before he can even _think_ to retaliate. “We disagree. The looper needs to know his actions have consequences, lest they quickly spiral out of control.”

He looks down his nose at Zelos. The wings on the Spirit’s back twitch and flutter like he’s some agitated bird with ruffled feathers. “Do not forget you are not the first pair I offer this power to,” Origin challenges, booming voice like a supernova in the sky. Zelos suppresses a shudder. “And do not make me retract my offer, Chosen.”

_Tick._

The smile from before breaks through, protective and nervous, dancing to a scoff over the surface of a cracked mask of arrogance crafted out of offence. "And don’t forget that you don't know him like I do. The journey lasts more or less half a year—there’s no way he can do that more than a handful of times. Eventually he's going to stop.” Zelos glares, shrugs. Keeps the smile in place. “I'm just extending that time by a little. Giving him time to figure things out without worrying."

“And if he does not stop?”

A pause, sudden and dripping with something cold that he doesn’t like. He wishes he could avoid it. But instead of lingering, he takes the shot: “You said the sacrifice must be willing, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” Zelos begins. Chokes on his own tongue. Swallows down anxieties born out of refusal of his own compromise.

Because...

Because the truth is that just as Lloyd has made up his mind, so has Zelos already made a choice, tied his own heart to it and taken the leap. This isn’t redemption. It isn’t a second chance so much as it is an opportunity to give his death an actual meaning outside of the sickening satisfaction of willingly going out with a bang before anyone but yourself can end you. The selfish desire of control even in death is unforgivable in the way he’s released it. After what he’s done to Lloyd Zelos doesn’t deserve forgiveness, or to be saved.

And it’s not like Origin said anything about the sacrifice having to make it through to the end.

This really was never about second chances at all. Nobody said that he _had_ to survive.

So perhaps if he just focuses on doing this for Lloyd, if he dies for Lloyd as many times as it takes instead of reaching for some stupid, childish salvation for his soul, he can fix something of what he broke.

Only Lloyd’s future is what matters, in the end.

And maybe, just maybe, if Zelos plays his cards right…

Then Lloyd will finally realize just how bad an idea it is to forgive a traitor in the first place, and maybe he will finally let go of Zelos and live on. Find happiness, or something. Get some fucking better friends and realize that what Zelos did—what he’s doing, what he _is—_ is all wrong.

And if he doesn’t...

He takes a deep breath, steels himself. Tries again to speak. “Then,” he begins, tongue dry and swollen in his mouth, “if I see things getting out of control, I can just stop being willing. Cut off the power straight from the root.”

If he doesn’t, he can always force an ending before Lloyd breaks.

_Tock._

Echo.

Silence.

The gears have stopped.

The ticking of the clock abruptly comes to an end, the last of its sound echoing off into space. Derris-Kharlan pauses its fight for independence from the unified planet it once kept in balance through the parasitic use of its own mana. Even the galaxies on the clock seem to have paused completely in their flow.

It knocks the air out of Zelos’ lungs for a second before he quickly recovers.

Then he looks up, holds his breath. Zelos and Origin maintain eye contact—violet against red, neither willing to relent. A battle of wills fought entirely in a stretched, empty silence between Summon Spirit and Chosen, one that feels wrong in how oppressive the previous noise was.

Cold and silence reigns supreme in the realm between life and death. Everything around them has stopped. It looks dead. _Feels_ dead.

And then Origin smiles.

_tock._

It’s like the world comes back to life when he scoffs, as he softly starts to laugh, the gears below rumbling a couple of seconds before they finally restart—and they go backwards, now, their sound quickening from their previous crawl, reverberating in Zelos’ eyes as he looks down to take it in.

                                                                                                                                                                    _tick,_

Like receding waves in the ocean the galaxies on the metal return whence they came. Backwards, rewinding, resetting, restarting. In the distance, behind Origin, Derris-Kharlan shudders as it starts to go back towards Aselia, tendrils of mana retying themselves between comet and planet.

                                                                                    _tick,_

Sylvarant and Tethe’alla’s union is quickly undone in another flash of pure, blinding white light, the planet pulled apart and brought back its position as two planets mutually destroying each other that it held at the start.

_Tick,_

“Very well.”

Zelos’ eyes settle back on Origin as he speaks, right in time to see Origin reach his hand towards him and open his palm, a strange, white glow engulfing it and dancing on his fingers. It’s like a miniature of the starlit sky, like the galaxies at their feet, an entire cosmic show held in the Summon Spirit’s hand that he flicks forward between his thumb and middle finger. It disappears, reappears on Zelos’ chest—over his Cruxis Crystal.

It sinks its teeth in.

He gasps and stumbles back. It dances on his skin, seeps into the crystal, leaves behind a white afterimage of the stars on the smooth rock. Zelos sets a hand on it, brushing aside stray stars. Feels the mana bouncing off the walls of his crystal. Feels the cold even through gloved hands.

What the _hell._

“I’ll agree to your terms,” comes Origin’s voice, again, rumbling over the speeding echo of the clock. Zelos stumbles forward with its strength, then back. “You may go back, then, Chosen of Mana. And he will not know of your role.”

The words pull at Zelos’ soul, swaying him in place as exhaustion crashes on him like a strong wind, eyelids suddenly heavy as the stars and planets swirl around him like they’re moved along by the hands of the clock, as time unwinds itself from its curl and opens its arms, gentle and welcoming, catching Zelos as he falls back.

Origin offers him a smile. It’s the last thing he sees before the world goes dark.


End file.
